1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing unit to be mounted on or connected to a device such as an electronic camera. Further, the present invention relates to an image processing method and an image processing program which are applied to the image processing unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image processing circuit inside the conventional electronic camera automatically conducts white balance processing, color transformation processing, gray-scale transformation processing, and so on, on individual images.
Parameters, which are used for these processings, are decided for each of the processings according to color temperature, intensity, and the like of the individual images.
Therefore, if there exists even a slight difference between two images, even though they are obtained by photographing the same scene, different parameters are set for the above processings. This results in the individual images' having different finishes.
In general, however, when a user obtains two images by photographing the same scene twice consecutively, probably with slight framing changes, the two images will mostly have a little difference. In such a case, the user often hopes to have the two images with the same photographic atmosphere (particularly, color balance).
The aforesaid conventional electronic camera, however, may recognize a large difference between the two images, event though the user can see no difference therebetween, and as a result, these two images may have quite different photographic atmospheres.